


A Knock In The Night

by DoINeedYouNow



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Henderson!Reader, Minimal Spoilers for Season 3, Post Season 3, watching scary movies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 02:56:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19939075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoINeedYouNow/pseuds/DoINeedYouNow
Summary: Your younger brother Dustin has managed to convince your parents to go for a road trip to Utah leaving you home alone without the usual gang hanging around. As you settle for a quiet night in, a knock at the door brings an unexpected and not necessarily unwelcome surprise.





	A Knock In The Night

The house was empty. 

Blissfully empty and quiet. 

After the last few weeks of Summer Break, the fire at Starcourt Mall, Dustin’s gang visiting most days having the house to yourself was a luxury you were going to enjoy full heartedly. A final chance to relax before you headed off for your first year of college. 

Your parents had taken Dustin to Salt Lake City for the week and you were almost certain Dustin’s eagerness to travel with them was due to proximity that he would be to Suzie. You had seen him looking at maps while packing, no doubt plotting some elaborate rendezvous at a secret location, by the moonlight of course. 

Ah, young love. 

You opened the cupboard, smiling to yourself that they were all still there, carefully selecting your snacks for an evening of uninterrupted reading and quite possibly passing out mid chapter in the lounge room. Since the Starcourt Mall incident your house had been full with Dustin and his friends, occupying the lounge watching scary movies on the new VHS player your dad had excitedly purchased last week. 

You grabbed a packet of Twizzlers from the cupboard, poured yourself a Coke and made your way back to the empty lounge, breathing in a deep sigh at the sheer peacefulness of it all. You collapsed on the sofa pulling out your book from behind your cushion and placed your drink and snack on the small table next to you. 

Opening your book to your marked chapter as your eyes began to flick across the words, losing yourself in the story of resurrected pets and Indian graveyards. 

A knock at the door, made you jump, the drink in your hand sloshing and splashing onto your top. 

‘Shit, shit,” you ran to the kitchen, blotting your top with the kitchen towel, while another, more urgent knock, sounded through the house again. Holding the towel to your chest, you moved cautiously to the front door.

Maybe reading Pet Cemetery while alone in your house was not quite your best idea yet. 

You looked around briefly for a weapon of some kind, your imagination in complete overdrive at this point. Deciding on an umbrella disused in the walkway, left over from winter long passed. 

You moved slowly to the window, moving the curtain just enough to be able to look at the front doorstep. Your heart stopping for an entirely different reason. 

Steve Harrington.

‘Fuck,’ you muttered under your breath as you dropped the umbrella to the side of the wall and opened the door, Steve’s hand raised again, poised for another knock. 

“Y/N,” he says, clearly surprised not to see his usual accomplice and instead his older sister. Surprise is quickly changed to concern as he notes the towel clutched to your chest “Are you okay?”

“What?” 

He gestures to the front of your top, “Yeah, I spilled some Coke.” You hadn’t yet quite met his eyes, flitting to the side instead. 

You weren’t sure exactly how this ‘friendship’ between your younger brother and Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington developed, but over the course of a weekend it seemed that they had become friends and this resulted in Steve being in your home not the uncommon event you would have thought it would be. 

And yet you still felt uncomfortable every time you are near him. 

“Is Dusty home?” he asks casually leaning against the door frame, craning his neck to look further into the home. 

“He’s gone with mom and dad, somehow he convinced them to a road trip to Utah.”

“Suzie,” Steve says with a smile. Almost like a proud parent. 

“Suzie,” you confirm. Still standing in the doorway, nervously shifting under his gaze. 

“I was hoping that maybe he would want to watch this with me?” Steve held up a copy of a VHS from the video store where he worked. You had visited the video store on numerous occasions usually dropping off Dustin and his friends to pick up a new movie. And there he would be again. It had seemed that for most of this summer you hadn’t been able to escape him and here he was again. 

You examined the video in his hand, “Cujo?”

“Yeah, I mean I was going to watch with him of course, parental supervision and all.” Steve quickly explains as you raise an eyebrow at his choice of movie. 

“Well, Dustin’s not here so-” 

“Right,” Steve gives a nod and you see the disappointment written all over his face. As much as you may hate to admit it your brother and Steve had developed a friendship that had you questioning some of the long formed opinions you had about Steve Harrington. 

You give a shrug of your shoulders, an attempt at cool and casual, “I’m just reading, if you wanted to watch it here. I wouldn’t mind.” 

Which was a lie, because you very much would mind. The sensible decision would be to send Steve back to his car and on his merry way, but you opened the door wider allowing him to enter. 

“You know where the player is,” you said closing the door behind him, “I’m just going to change,” you pointed to your shirt and made your way to your room. 

You closed the bedroom door behind you, pulling off your shirt and digging around your drawer for another. Deliberating between two before reaching a decision. You were all alone in your house with Steve Harrington. You stared at yourself in the mirror, pushing your hair behind your ears before taking a deep. You were just two people watching a movie in the same house, that was all it was. You wouldn’t even been watching the movie. You felt sorry for him, that was all this was. 

You had started sitting at the furthest corner of the couch, intent on focusing on your book, but eventually found yourself distracted by the TV and placing the book back to it’s safe spot under your cushion. Gradually edging closer to the middle of the couch, closer to Steve who was engrossed. 

Your gaze drifted from the movie, to the way the light moved across his face, highlighting his lips, and of course that hair. 

You considered the pack of Twizzlers on your lap, moving closer still and holding the pack between the two of you, a peace offering of sorts. As Steve was focused on the screen in front you tapped the packet gently on his arm, managing to gain his attention. 

He moved to take one, a small smile, before focusing on the screen again. You moved closer as you kept the packet between you, chewing on the Twizzler as you focused on the screen. The two of you engrossed, as you passed the packet between you. Neither one speaking, despite the occasional gasp, or ooh in response to the movie. 

His hand brushed against yours as you handed the packet back and you paused your movements, holding your breath as he did the same. A tension settling over both of you as your eyes focused intently on the screen. Not game enough to see his reaction. 

“Popcorn,” you shouted unexpectedly, earning a jump from Steve. “I’m going to make some.” You quickly got up and moved to the kitchen, muttering to yourself about how exactly you had gotten yourself into this situation. 

You placed the popcorn on the stove, trying to focus on the steps instead of the boy leaning casually against your kitchen bench, watching as you fiddled with the gas. 

“I was an asshole in high school,” he says breaking the silence. Memories of yourself with him in a closet with at Shellie Marino’s 16th birthday party during a game of seven minutes in heaven come flooding back, followed by the teasing, the jibes, cruel words from her peers that he didn’t dispute. 

“No argument here,” you mutter under your breath. 

“But I’m not the same person, things have happened that made me realise that the things I thought were important in high school weren’t. Being popular, being cool, even the hair,” he added with a chuckle. 

“Blasphemy,” you added. 

“I can see why you would be worried about the guy that I was in high school hanging out with your kid brother, I get it. But Dustin is a really cool kid, and for his age kind of wise.” 

“Well don’t you go telling him that. Since that Camp Know Where he has a big enough head as it is.”

“So-”

“So-”

“Truce,” Steve said holding out his hand towards you. 

“Truce,” you agree taking his hand in your own and giving it a firm shake. The sound of the first pop of popcorn had you shrieking, tightening your grip automatically as he does the same, before both dissolving into giggles as he helped you to finish popping the corn before he returned to the couch and you grabbed another treat from the cupboard. 

Taking a seat on the couch next to him, closer than before you leaned over and poured the full box of Milk Duds over the popcorn in the large bowl resting on his lap. 

“Oh God, not you too.” Steve groaned.

“It’s good,” you protest, grabbing a handful and eating them, the mixture of sweet, salty, butter and chocolate covering your tongue in the most wonderful of combinations. 

Steve does the same, his cheeks puffing out slightly as he quite clearly has overestimated just how much food his mouth can hold. 

He almost chokes, before he manages to chew and swallow, while you try to suppress a fit of laughter behind you hand. 

After several minutes, and a large gulp, Steve manages a muffled, “It’s good.”

“Right? You owe Dustin an apology.” You say as you press play on the remote, settling back into the couch as the movie starts up again. 

A silence takes over the room again as the movie plays. You try not to pay attention to the way your hands keep brushing against each others, as you both reach for the popcorn between you. 

The intensity of the film grows and you find yourself leaning closer and closer, your shoulders touching, the bowl empty of the coffee table. And then on the screen the dog crashes through the window. 

“Oh my god!,” you shriek, as Steve’s hand wraps around your own, and on instinct you are turning into his chest, hiding from the imaginary monster on the screen. You shield your eyes from the screen, your hand gripping Steve’s shirt as the final scene plays and you can finally relax. Your breathing returns to normal and as the credits role you notice his arm around your shoulder, holding you steady. 

You look up at him.

“Hey, Y/N,” he says softly, “ you okay?” The concern in his eyes takes you by surprise there is no alterior motive behind the question, just a genuineness that you didn’t expect. 

“It was just a little intense.” The movie is over, the imaginary threat is gone and really you should be unwrapping his arms from around you and wishing him a good night, but instead you find yourself wanting him to stay. 

“I know this sounds ridiculous, cause it’s just a movie, but-,” you can’t even meet his eyes as you ask, “could you stay?”

He gives you a smile, a genuine one, “I’ll take the couch.”

Turns out maybe Steve Harrington isn’t quite so bad after all. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
